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Author Notes: We eat a lot of chicken, a lot. I am constantly looking for new ways to reinvent the wheel. This one is a take on southeast Asian cuisine. It is by no means is intended to be authentic -- I just follow the mantra of hot, sour, salty, sweet. —Summer of Eggplant

Food52 Review: WHO: Summer of Eggplant is a lighting designer who lives in Atlanta.
WHAT: A hot-sour-salty-sweet chicken dish that grills up in minutes.
HOW: Marinate your chicken in tamarind pulp, soy sauce, fish sauce, lime zest, sugar, and spices. Then, 4 to 6 hours later, grill it up!
WHY WE LOVE IT: We love how easy this dish is to prep -- if you can put ingredients into a bag, then you can make this dish. When it's too cold to grill, we use a grill pan and then finish it in the oven -- feel free to do the same. —The Editors

Serves 4

4 leg quarters

3/4 cup tamarind cooking pulp

1/4cup low sodium soy sauce

2tablespoons fish sauce

2 1/2tablespoons light brown sugar

1 onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 lime, zested

2teaspoons red pepper flakes

2teaspoons Chinese five spice (I use Reims from La Boîte Epice)

Place the ingredients in a large Ziploc or seal-able bowl. Mix until combined, add chicken, and marinate for 4 to 6 hours. Rotate the chicken in the marinade every so often.

Set up the grill for direct/indirect heat. We do this by making a semi circle of charcoal. You'll know when the grill is hot but not too hot when you can count to 3 with your hand over the fire.

Remove the chicken from the marinade. Sear the chicken skin side down for about 4 to 5 minutes until crispy. You may pour the excess marinade over the legs at this point. Turn the legs over and cook skin side up for another 2 minutes over the high heat, then move them to the cooler side of the grill, but still near the coals for indirect heat, put the grill lid on and cook for about 25 minutes. They are done when the internal temperature reaches 160°F.

I really enjoyed this chicken..I used drum sticks...I will make in future....however, next time I will buy tamarind in a jar....very time consuming buying paste and processing...In the future I welcome short cut....thanks for delicious recipe

OMG!!! I saw the recipe and fell in love, so I prepared the marinade yesterday and put it into the fridge overnight, the rest today, and it's so savory!!I've been looking around long time for this flavor… Congrats!!!

whole foods and kroger sell it. try the ethnic,indian, areas. Also you can buy the tamrind and make the paste by cooking the tamrind with some water(i guesstimate) for 30 to 40 mins or until the water is almost absorb. remove the seeds

This was so easy, tasty and impressive; ticks all the boxes! Feeling extra lazy so I roasted the chicken on parchment paper in the oven, so even though there were no grill marks parts of the skin still turned a lovely caramelised brown. I poured the rest of the onions and garlic marinade over the chicken with 10 minutes to go, which gave me a rich sauce to serve with the chicken over steamed rice, green beans and choy sum. I'll be making this again for sure.

Made this last night-- and WOW! complex, tasty, beautiful mahogany color on the chicken. I bought a box of fresh (dried?) sweet tamarind at Whole Foods last week and have been looking for ways to consume. Making the pulp was pretty easy- crack the pods and remove, pull the strings, soak/simmer (45ish minutes) strain. I didnt worry about proportions-just made sure it was thick/thin and easily incorporated into the marinade. I could have easily used 6 leg quarters instead of 4 in the marinade, too. Thanks a ton- this will be in regular rotation!